Karen Alloy

In the age of social media, pushing the envelope and sharing too much information can be one of the most effective ways to gain an internet following -- especially if the person sharing the information happens to be a babe. Just ask Karen Alloy, a YouTube sensation and budding comedian who has found waves of viral popularity by blowing the lid off of her private life with results that are both amusing and lucrative. Using the name spricket24 as her video blogging nom de plume, the mother of three has candidly and enthusiastically shared her views on such personal topics as sex, childbirth and breastfeeding -- all from the comfort of her apartment.

While a good portion of Karen Alloy’s following comes from the support of a strong female demographic, both her obvious beauty and biting wit are captivating enough to capture the attention of any curious YouTube-surfing man. Armed with a camera and a snappy sense of humor, Alloy has gone from blogging hobbyist to Emmy winner in a very short time, while also ensuring that we’ll never quite look at glass cleaner, deodorant and breast milk the same way ever again.

SEX APPEAL

There’s a good case to be made that Karen Alloy is the most fiery redhead in the social media city of YouTube. Of course, Alloy’s crimson locks and outspoken personality go hand-in-hand with the ample curves she's been happy to make plain in cleavage-baring outfits. Alloy doesn’t use her sexuality to sell her internet brand, but she has a knack for knowing how to put her natural gifts to practical use in the name of increasing her social media following. Before carving her slice of YouTube pie, she even dabbled in a nude modeling shoot, so it’s safe to assume that she knows what she’s doing. After all, her most-viewed YouTube video is called “Breasts are the BEST!” We rest our case.

Karen Alloy’s willingness to share herself on video from the inside her apartment has given the rest of us outside a plethora of insight into who she is and -- for the AskMen readers who are so inclined -- what it would be like to date her. Among other things, the recently divorced mother of three is not keen to marry again, she’s bisexual and believes women are better kissers than men, she’s a serial eater of cereal and her biggest pet peeve is someone who picks their teeth in public. So if you kiss like Casanova, floss regularly and have an organic granola recipe that puts the cereal market to shame, your stock with Alloy will spike.

SUCCESS

The only full-time YouTube blogger ever to win an Emmy (for her video "2012: The End of the World"), Karen Alloy is already light years ahead of the millions of other YouTube users vying for record and movie deals and pop culture glory. The secret to her success? Being herself and staying true to the philosophy of prodding viewers out of their own comfort zones. Yes, drinking your own breast milk will do that, as will munching on deodorant and spraying glass cleaner in your mouth. While Alloy’s video oddities -- fake or carefully staged -- might make people squirm, it’s her job to push the envelope.

The subjects of Karen Alloy’s uncomfortably funny observations run womanhood to dating to killing zombies -- all with appropriately catchy titles like “How Not to Get Murdered” and “Wieners vs. Vaginas." For her efforts, she’s been handsomely rewarded with complete control of her own destiny. The Emmy aside, she makes her living completely through YouTube thanks to channel views of more than 4.5 million and a subscriber base of over 185,000. While Alloy’s extroverted comedic style isn’t for everyone, she’s never at a loss for words, and she's living proof that in today’s rich social media environment, all you need to win an Emmy -- besides a taste for glass cleaner -- is a good idea and a camera.

Karen Alloy Biography

Karen Alloy was born in Chicago, but her formative years took place in Minot, North Dakota. Though she was forced to repeat kindergarten due to shyness, Alloy eventually discovered ways to draw humor out of her own social awkwardness -- occasionally by making others uncomfortable. By high school, she was a faithful English class attendee (where she wrote often), a hater of sociology class and a regular in the drama club. Alloy’s interest in performing didn’t bring her automatic popularity, though, and she was often involved in fights with other girls.

By age 17, Karen Alloy was frustrated with her social life and her family life. In the hope of finding adventure and escaping the pitfalls of day-to-day life, she joined the National Guard. There she learned how to curse properly and survive the awkwardness of sharing bathrooms with male soldiers. She remained with the National Guard for eight years and later enrolled at Normandale Community College in Minnesota to pursue theater studies, though her first pregnancy eventually cut her schooling short.

Karen Alloy joins YouTube and wins an Emmy

In 2006, Karen Alloy was tempted by social media phenomenon YouTube, then in only its second year. The temptation proved strong enough that, much to the surprise of her husband, she quit her corporate human-resources job so she could make her own videos instead. At first, Alloy’s videos were inconspicuous, as her debut -- “Cheese please” -- was an 11 second demand for cheese. In time, they got more daring and more funny. “My Big Secret” had her munching on a deodorant stick, which she later suggested was actually cream cheese, while “Donald Trump Letter” found her pondering an event invite from the son of Donald Trump.

As she faithfully continued offering content to her subscribers, Karen Alloy’s video views and overall subscriber base began to increase at a more dramatic rate. Her 2007 video “YouTube Date” featured Alloy being romanced by an animated YouTube icon and breaking things off with a dejected Google icon -- and was watched by over 700,000 viewers. In 2009, she hit a new a plateau. Her ambitious video “2012: The End of the World” ran through the list of frightening threats to mankind (from cancer to paper cuts to an intoxicated Gary Busey) before offering a humorous explanation of the Mayan calendar and the end of the world. The five-minute video proved to be a social media groundbreaker when the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences later presented Alloy with a special Emmy Award in its category for Advanced Media Writer -- a choice that made her the first YouTube performer to earn an Emmy statuette.

karen alloy gives birth on blogtv and chases conan o’brien

In the summer of 2009, Karen Alloy was on the verge of delivering her third child when she teamed up with BlogTV to do a live text chat from the hospital while she was in labour. The event attracted 400 online visitors and her new arrival inspired Alloy to consider ways to push the social media envelope even further. Her YouTube video “Breasts are the BEST!” promoted the benefits of breast milk for babies (and the pain of breastfeeding) before she took her advocacy a step further with “Drink My Breastmilk?” in which answered the title question in the affirmative by, well, drinking her breast milk. These two videos alone earned nearly 4 million views.

With greater popularity than ever, Karen Alloy shared her opinions on pop culture stories subjects from Tiger Woods to Steven Slater in 2010, while also trying to persuade Conan O’Brien to appear in a YouTube video with her during his stop in Minnesota. Although her campaign blanketed YouTube, Twitter and Facebook, Alloy was unsuccessful in her attempt -- perhaps due to her hilariously creepy body pillow that was covered printed with Conan O’Brien’s visage.

Lately, Karen Alloy has been keen to use her YouTube success as a springboard toward other projects, which have ranged from a stalled reality-television project to an acting role in the independent film, P.O.P. With her Emmy success and status as a YouTube pioneer still holding steady, Alloy’s next move will determine whether she can take her unique brand of hilarious discomfort to bigger and weirder places in the entertainment spectrum.